1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to pallets and more particularly to slip sheets which serve as a unitizing base for a stack of boxes or similar packaged products and which are provided with multi-scored tabs which in use assume a rounded springback configuration so that the projecting tab will not damage products on adjacent loads.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
The use of slip sheets is well known. They are ordinarily made of flat sheets of solid fibre board, corrugated board or plastic. In use, a slip sheet serves as a load bearing unit base for a stack of boxes or similarly packaged products that are placed upon it. A special type of front end attachment is required for handling unitized loads on slip sheets. Thus, a lift truck carrying a platen is provided with a special push-pull attachment which overlies the platen. This attachment includes a transverse front plate wall which extends to just beyond the leading edge of the platen and retracts to the opposite back plate of the push-pull attachment. A gripper bar along the lower edge of the front plate will grip a pull tab at the edge of the slip sheet to assist in holding the sheet and its load while the front plate is retracting and the load is being pulled onto the platen. The front plate will thereafter extend to push the sheet and its load off the platen.
The slip sheet must be provided with at least one tab for gripping the sheet and for moving the load onto the platen, but it creates one problem. The tab projecting beyond the unitized load causes damage when it contacts the product in an adjacent load. When the tab is stiff and makes contact with the product in an adjacent load, the product is damaged by the tab before the tab bends or buckles. This is especially true when the product placement on the sheet covers the score line for the tab. Since the slip sheet may be provided with tabs on more than one side, even up to all four sides, for gripping the sheet from any side, it will be apparent that such additional tabs can compound the damage.
The slip sheet of the present invention takes care of this problem by employing a tab which is multi-scored so that it assumes a rounded springback configuration when combined with a load. Thus the tab tends to bend and buckle when the load comes into contact with an adjacent load rather than projecting into and damaging such adjacent load.